Lei ler from Dr. Thornton on the Cotv-Por. 57 



the extraordinary hot weather of this month. On the Sundav* 

 the parents confess that the leg of nunton at the fire was t^o 

 putrid as to be obUgcd to be thrown away : and this also 

 happened with my meat, and was common throughoiu Lon- 

 don. I say then, that it is almobt incredible under ihcse 

 circumstances, labouring under an aggravated fever, that 

 20,000 pustules should be all coherent, and none con^ 

 fiuent ; or that this child, worn down by hooping-cough, 

 should, under such circumstances, have surmounted this 

 disease if it were the genuine small-pox. As the small-pox 

 tfffluvia render the cow-pock eruptive, and not a single local 

 pustule ; and as the cow-pock with the itch becomes pustular 

 and general, so may the small-pox matter modify the swinc- 

 or chicken-pox and eczema; and the same might have 

 happened whether the patient had previously received the 

 vaccine or variolous inoculation. That a local small-pox 

 may be produced, almost every day's experience might de- 

 termine; and that a disease from this cause resemNing 

 small-pox should create, even if there were no varicella, 

 .sometimes a co//,j/i/«/io7/a/ aftection, is also known. But in 

 all such cases certainly there is a something tliat marks the 

 distinction of the local and genuine small-pox ; and, as 

 J)r. Woodville informed me, Mr. Goldson's cases " were 

 not small-pox :" but it must be allowed he describes a dis- 

 ease somewhat s'wular to the genuine small-pox, 



Mr. Few,ster, of Thornbury, comnumicated to Dr. .Tenner 

 the following case : — " A child, who was inoculated for the 

 sinall-pox, had a plentiful eruption on the face. His nurse- 

 maid, who had the disorder many years before, and was 

 much pitted with it, used to let him sleep on lier left arm j 

 to that his face was in contact with her left cheek. 



*' The consequence was, that in little more than a week 



* I was led more particularly ro notice the weather at this time, being 

 summontd to attend a coroner's inqutsr, respecting a child supposed to 

 have been poit.ontd by its mother on the Fiiday, froin the quick putridity 

 of the body pn the Sunday, and employed on the Monday the knife, to 

 clear up the f^ct, with no small danger to mysclF. The charjjc was 

 groundless. It died by iliinkiiig boihiig tea out of a tea-pot. Thurs 'ay, 

 Sept. 13th, tlie thermometer in a north a-^ptct stood as high as 81°. On 

 Friday and Saturday it was tlie same. On Sunday, from one till two, 

 it stood as high as 8}°, and by ten trinurts after two (a most rcmark.ihle 

 phaenomenon) was decidedly at ^4- 7^ (eighty-four degrees seven tenths). 

 Here it hecamc stationary, till 20 iiiiuutes after two, when it began to 

 fall, and gradually descended to So°. Now the usual summer's heat, 

 even of Jnlyan.J August, seJdom exceeds 80° of Fahrenheit's thermometer; 

 and this will readily account for the contaminated varici lla and eczema 

 •ruption in this child being so general and abundant. At this period I 

 JUjticed several very bid cases of both varicella and ec/cma solarc. 



a con- 



